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Bishop of Durham compares banks to Blitz ruins

Ruth Gledhill

October 29 2012, 12:01am, The Times

The Right Rev Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, said that banks before 2008 had no 'socially useful' purposeKJB-photography

The favourite to become the next Archbishop of Canterbury has compared the devastated state of the banking industry after the financial crash to the ruins of Coventry Cathedral after it was bombed in the war.

The Right Rev Justin Welby, the Bishop of Durham, said that banks before 2008 had no “socially useful” purpose and were “exponents of anarchy.”

In a lecture entitled Repair or Replace, the Bishop, a member of the House of Lords Banking Standards Commission, which is drawing up recommendations for a new banking act, said: “One principle seems clear, we cannot repair what was destroyed in 2008, we can only replace it with something that is dedicated to the support of human society, to the common good and to solidarity.”